


Lithium

by Jenshih_Blue



Series: Open the Door ~ A Modern Day Fairy Tale in 13 Parts [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 17:39:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10443399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenshih_Blue/pseuds/Jenshih_Blue





	

The first time that Dean slipped beneath the covers of Sam’s bed, Sam had woke from a deep sleep to feel the weight of Dean against his back, and his arm curled around his waist. Even though they hadn’t stepped back into their relationship as it was before John’s death, Sam found it comforting that Dean was in his bed. Despite that comfort, he’d also found it odd.

 

Even when they’d been lovers, they’d never slept together. They hadn’t slept in the same bed since Dean had been twelve. Sam remembered missing the heat of Dean curled around him as he drifted off on the windswept sands of Morpheus, but their father had insisted that they sleep separately because Dean was becoming a man and needed his space. At the time, Sam hadn’t understood the real reason behind John’s words, but later he had that moment of clarity. Sometimes he wondered if their father had seen what was coming and had done what he was best at—a preemptive strike.

 

Sam hadn’t said anything as Dean molded his body around his, not in a sexual way, but rather in that way Sam recalled from childhood. That night he slept better than he had since Jess and he’d woke to find Dean whistling softly as he skimmed the internet for their next job. Dean had greeted him with a smile and a nod at a cup of hot coffee, but neither of them spoke of the night before. That after all was the Winchester way.

 

Days went by before Dean crept into his bed again and Sam realized that despite the façade that his brother showed the world, he was still human. They both had their burdens to bear and suffered from their own nightmares. He imagined Dean’s nightmares consisted of hellfire and their father suffering eternal torment because of him. Nothing Sam would have said could change the guilt that Dean carried after their father’s death. They never had really discussed it except for that once on the side of the road after they had left the cemetery where a block of granite was all that remained of their mother. A testament to a life cut short far too damn soon.

 

There was a part of Sam, albeit a small one, that understood why Dean hated that place, but it was their mother. Sam wished, no ached, for the memory of the woman he’d only ever known from faded photographs and whispered stories in the dark of anonymous motel rooms. Sam needed more than that. He needed to have something to represent their loss because despite what some might think, he grieved for his mother even though he didn’t remember her. There was a deep aching darkness in his chest that nothing could fill despite his best attempts. Mary was the only thing that could have filled that darkness and for a split second, when he’d seen her spirit back in Lawrence all those months ago the darkness had faded, but it hadn’t been enough.

 

It never was.

 

 Therefore, they continued on two separate beings that shared the same grief but could never quite let it go. Brothers who sought comfort in the same darkness in their own ways even though they never would admit to the addiction they had to the grief or to one another. They both acted for the other like a dose of lithium, drawing one another down into a place they couldn’t speak of except in the silence of the endless nights in a language of bodies and the constant road to redemption; Sam for Jess and Dean for John.

 

If that was what it took, Sam was fine with that, even if they never touched one another in the way he longed for again. As long as Dean no longer drowned himself in an endless string of one-night stands and cheap whiskey it would be okay. Just having Dean next to him in the darkness was enough, for now, he thought.

 

Then one night it changed.

 

Somewhere in between facing the possibility of Sam falling into darkness, the two of them becoming _America’s Most Wanted_ , seeking out murderous _angels_ , and chasing little green men in the Midwest the game had changed. It was after they’d set free Molly from the cycle of her guilt that Dean had taken the next step. The step would send them spiraling back in the direction they’d been going before Sam had said no more.

 

They had driven until they hit the Nevada-California border and then pulled over to rest at a ratty little motel just outside Nevada City. The snow in the mountains had melted into rain that slicked the worn asphalt and dripped from the edge of the motel’s roof. It was that same rain apparently that had washed away almost every bit of darkness that had clung to Dean, since John’s death.

 

Sam had stepped from the bathroom to find Dean beneath the covers, but not pretending to be asleep as he often did. He met Sam’s eyes and lifted the covers in an invitation to join him for the first time in Sam’s recent memory. In Dean’s eyes, he saw everything he needed to make that choice, but it wasn’t easy. _When had it ever been easy for them_ , Sam mused.

 

As he chose, after moments of wordless conversation, he moved across the age-worn carpet and dropped the towel he hadn’t been aware that he’d been twisting in his hands. He slipped beneath the covers and slid across the cool cotton of the sheets into the burning cradle of Dean’s body. The moment was simple perfection Sam had thought as he rested his head against Dean’s chest, his heart beat a staccato part of Sam’s soul that now felt complete once more. He closed his eyes and listened to that rhythm that had lulled him to sleep as a child and in those muffled notes, captured beneath layers of cotton, skin, muscle, and bone he heard the words that Dean would never speak aloud.

 

_Come to bed…do not make me sleep alone…_

 


End file.
